Home staging in Batumi before selling or renting out your apartment

Home staging in Batumi is needed when an apartment is in good order but looks worse in photos and at viewings than it really is: cramped with someone else's belongings, bare without furniture, or characterless after a tenant. We work with what is already in the apartment and add only a little: textiles, lighting, a few decor pieces. There is no renovation in this job. If the walls, grout or doors need attention, a pre-sale renovation crew puts them right first.

How home staging differs from decorating and furnishing

A decorator furnishes an apartment for years of living and to the owner's taste, and the page on interior decorating covers this in detail. Furnishing means buying everything that will stay in the apartment for the long term. Home staging has a shorter-term job: from the photos and at a viewing, a person should see straight away where the bedroom is, how much space there is in the living room and what the window looks out on.

That is why the owner's taste takes a back seat here. A buyer or a guest should picture themselves in the apartment, not you. Family photos, collections and a bright throw in your favourite colour are put away, however nice they are.

The visit and a list of improvements with a budget

The work starts with a visit. We walk through the apartment and draw up a list in four columns: what to remove, what to move, what to add and what to fix. The last column gets small things like a blown bulb or a loose skirting board, and we pass them to a tradesman. Every item in the "add" column has an approximate price and a note saying whether to rent it or buy it.

You can work through the list yourself. Some owners do exactly that, especially when the apartment is furnished and mostly just needs tidying. If we do the work, the same list becomes the arrangement plan and a budget that you approve before anything is bought.

The arrangement plan room by room

We arrange the furniture so that from the door you can see a clear path to the window and the sofa doesn't block the view. The bed goes in the middle of a wall with space to walk on both sides, if the room allows it. In a studio we mark out each area separately: a rug under the sofa defines the living room, a lamp over the table defines the kitchen, and the photos leave no doubt about where you sleep.

Decor, textiles and lighting: rent or buy

Whether to rent an item or buy it depends on whether it will stay in the apartment. Before a sale we rent most of the decor for the viewing period, which we write into the contract, and after the sale the items go back. Before renting out, the things are needed for the long term: guests will use the throw and the lamp every day, so we buy them and they go into the apartment's inventory.

We add lighting almost every time. New builds often have a single ceiling light or rows of spotlights across the ceiling, and in the evening the room looks flat. A floor lamp in the corner and lamps on the bedside tables create warm pools of light, and in a photo that shows more than any decor does. Replacing all the curtains, bed linen and rugs for a rental is priced separately, as furnishing with textiles and decor.

If the apartment is empty

An empty room gives the eye nothing to hold on to: from a photo you can't tell whether a double bed will fit or where the dining table would go. Furniture isn't included in the price of home staging, so for an empty apartment owners usually choose one of three routes:

• photograph the apartment empty, make the view and the layout the main shots, and attach a floor plan with dimensions to the listing;
• buy the minimum, meaning a bed, a sofa and a table with chairs, and add textiles and lighting from our list; we choose the furniture through a furniture package under a separate estimate;
• if the apartment will be rented out afterwards, furnish it for renting straight away, and then the staging comes down to arranging things before the shoot.

The choice depends on what happens to the apartment next. Furniture bought for a sale can go to the buyer along with the apartment if you agree on it, but the buyer may also turn it down.

Before renting out: guests and tenants

With short-term rental, the staging has to survive cleaning after every guest. Candles, fragile vases and piles of books on the table last until the first check-in. We keep the things that can stand up to suitcases and wet towels: a plain bedspread that goes in the washing machine, two cushions instead of six, lamps on a stable base.

A tenant on a one-year lease hardly needs decor, because they will bring their own. Here the staging comes down to tidiness and light. Empty wardrobes with the doors open show in the photos how much storage there is, and a desk by the window answers the question of whether you can work from home. We stage the apartment for the shoot as the last step of preparing it for rent, once the appliances have been checked and the minor repairs are done.

Shoot day and viewings

We bring the items the day before the shoot or that morning. We arrange them to plan, steam the curtains and bedspreads, switch on the lights and air the rooms, and the photographer comes straight after that. How we shoot and why we choose the day by the weather is described on the page about apartment photography for listings.

Viewings go on for weeks, and all that time the apartment has to look the way it does in the photos. If we hold the keys, we go into the apartment before viewings under the contract: we air the rooms, switch on the air conditioning and straighten the textiles. If an agent is showing the apartment, we leave them a short list of what to check at the door. After the sale we collect the rented items against the list, and the ones you bought stay with you.

How much apartment home staging costs in Batumi

Home staging before a sale costs from 2,280 to 3,600 ₾ per apartment. The price covers the arrangement plan, decor, textiles and lighting, rented or bought, and arranging everything on the day of the shoot. Before renting out, the work is the same. Furniture, renovation, cleaning and photography are not included in this amount and are priced as separate lines.

If all you need is a fresh pair of eyes, there is a visit with a list of improvements and purchases with a budget for 300–420 ₾, after which you prepare the apartment yourself. A full set of textiles and decor for a one-bedroom (1+1) apartment that stays in place for renting out costs 4,200–6,600 ₾. The prices for cleaning, photography and preparing for rent are in the table.

The price goes up for an empty apartment that needs more items, a large floor area or a terrace, a long viewing period with rented items, and a house outside the city. A furnished apartment that mostly lacks tidiness and light comes in near the bottom of the range, especially if you take away the surplus yourself. The final price is set after the visit, once the list has been agreed.